Variations on Wrath

Dr. Faustus' (Christopher Marlowe not Goethe, though that one is good, too) interview with the seven deadly sins is one of my favorite pieces in literature. Check out Envy:

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I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books burned. I am lean with seeing others eat. O, that there would come a famine over all the world, that all might die, and I live alone! then thou shouldst see how fat I'd be. But must thou sit, and I stand? come down, with a vengeance!

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But the one that has rattled around in my brain the most often is Wrath:

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I am Wrath. I had neither father nor mother: I leapt out of a lion's mouth when I was scarce an hour old; and ever since have run up and down the world with this case of rapiers, wounding myself when I could get none to fight withal. I was born in hell; and look to it, for some of you shall be my father.

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The bit about wounding himself when there is none to fight with. That one. Today I was/am thinking about how we work up wrath (often tied to self-justification) to cover hurt. If I can be angry, find a reason that someone has done something against me, then I can deal more easily with the pain, because I have an object to vilify. But sometimes, like Wesley told Princess Buttercup, life is pain and "anyone who says different is selling something."

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I'm thinking the only way to subvert that very human and understandable reaction is to engage with the concept of humility; which is not self-abasement nor victimization, nor denial, but something more freeing and radical. Yup, that's what I'm thinking about.

Image courtesy of quite a fine blog: http://indexed.blogspot.com/

Oh, here's a way to find out which of the seven deadlies will be your downfall:

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/seven_deadly_sins.html